Accepting the Truth
by Lilac Winters21
Summary: ""I've never seen it before in my life, Apollo. Why, should I know if from somewhere?" This time, my bracelet bit deep into my wrist as it tightened, leaving no room for doubt. Athena was lying. She'd seen that knife before somewhere." Apollo wonders what to believe as his bracelet and his core beliefs are at odds.


**I had to write a thing for the prompt "An inconvenient truth" and this was the result. It's written with the intention that people who aren't familiar with the games will still be able to understand it, so that's why I explain a few things that are common knowledge in the fandom. I'm not really sure how much I like this, but I'm going ahead and posting it because I'm hoping for some constructive criticism before I **

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My name is Apollo Justice, and I am most definitely not fine.

See, "I'm fine" is sort of my catchphrase. It's what keeps me going even when things get rough. I found out when I was a kid that if you just yell out "I'm fine" loud enough, eventually it makes you feel like you really are fine, even if you weren't at first. It's never failed me before-not when I was an orphaned kid crying for my parents, not when I was picked on by bullies in school, not even when my best friend, Clay Terran, was murdered-I may have been screaming it out through my sobs at first, but it pulled me together enough so that I could function. I got up, walked out of my apartment, and went to work-only to find that the man who'd been arrested for Clay's murder was none other than his mentor, the man he'd loved like a father: Solomon Starbuck. There was no way Mr. Solomon had done it, of course. As soon as I saw the news on television, I was on the nearest bus for the detention center, demanding he let me defend him in court (did I mention I'm a defense attorney?). He agreed; he knows me well, and he knew that I would do everything I could to get the truth out. Ah, the truth. How could I have known where the search for the truth would lead me? How could I know it would betray me so?

There's something else I haven't mentioned; I have a bit of a special power. I have a bracelet that I always wear-my mother left it with me when I was a baby. When someone's lying, it tightens on my wrist; it helps me to focus so that I can Perceive the nervous habits that indicate someone is lying. Sounds like a gift that'd be pretty helpful to a lawyer, right? Well, as I found out, it's both a blessing and a curse.

I had to investigate the crime scene to see if I could find any clues to Mr. Starbuck's innocence. Athena Cykes, my coworker, went with me. She's a good friend of mine-and maybe even a little more than that. We haven't worked together for that long, but I already feel like I've known her forever. She's full of energy, life, and passion for what is right-for the truth. That's what I thought, anyway.

We found a knife at the crime scene; a knife covered in Clay's blood. I held it in gloved hands, knowing that this was the weapon that had claimed my friend's life. It was hard for me to not be revolted by it, not to throw it out the nearest window, hoping to never see it again. Only the hope that I could use it to prove Mr. Starbuck's innocence kept me holding on to it, forced me to touch it, to examine it, to put it in the bag where we store our evidence and carry it around. My reaction to the knife wasn't the real issue, however. Athena's reaction was.

When I found the knife, I called her over from her investigation on the other side of the room to come look at it. I saw her as she crossed over, and a strange thing happened; the moment she laid eyes on the knife, my bracelet tightened on my wrist.

"Have you seen this before?" I asked her. The words just slid out of my mouth. It was a reflex from questioning witnesses in court when my bracelet reacts to them. Of course she'd never seen it before, I thought to myself. She's probably just nervous about the blood, or she's worried about how I'll react to the weapon that killed my best friend, or-

"No, of course not," she said, and my bracelet tightened on my wrist yet again. What?

"Sorry, say that again?" I asked her, not believing what my bracelet had just told me, feigning that I hadn't heard her properly to hear it again. I must have just imagined it, there was no way Athena could have any connection to-

"I've never seen it before in my life, Apollo. Why, should I know it from somewhere?" This time, my bracelet bit deep into my wrist as it tightened, leaving no room for doubt. Athena was lying. She'd seen that knife before somewhere.

"No," I muttered in response to her, quickly shoving the knife in the bag and turning away from her so she wouldn't see the emotions that were threatening to break out across my face. I didn't understand: how could she have seen that knife before? And why would she lie about having seen it? The questions haunted me all day, whispering doubts in the back of my mind. Every time Athena talked about the case after that, my bracelet reacted again, tightening so fiercely at times that it left marks on my skin.

I didn't confront her; I didn't have the courage to face the truth: the horrible, inconvenient truth that had made itself known to me. So I ignored it; I pretended I couldn't feel the bite of my bracelet almost every time she spoke to me that day. I went home late that night, staying at the office with Trucy and Mr. Wright for as long as possible; I was scared to be alone, scared of where my thoughts might take me without distractions. Unfortunately, my fear was completely justified.

It was late enough that I went straight to bed when I got home; I was hoping for the release of sleep from the ugly truth that was beginning leach into my very soul. Unfortunately, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned turned for hours before simply giving up and turning on the television, desperate for some noise. It didn't, however, drown out the one thought I'd been desperately hoping it would.

Athena is the murderer.

There's no other reason that she would react to the knife to the magnitude that she did. That's the undeniable truth.

I couldn't face it that night. I told myself I needed to focus on proving Mr. Starbuck's innocence, not accusations against my coworker. So I tied a bandage around my eye; if I couldn't see Athena's nervous habits clearly, my bracelet wouldn't be able to react to them. I went to court like that the next day. When they asked me what was wrong, I muttered something about how it was just a sty and yelled out that I was fine. It was the first time that those words had truly been a lie.

That day, I ignored the truth and pushed on with the trial, fighting for Mr. Starbuck's innocence with all the physical evidence I had. It may have been going poorly, but I believed in my client, and I still had plenty of fight left in me. And then the world exploded.

A bomb went off in the courtroom. I was injured pretty badly; I woke up in the hospital, barely able to move for pain. They pumped me full of painkillers and released me, since miraculously, I hadn't broken any bones. Some miracle, considering the rest of my situation.

The pain did do one thing for me; it cleared my head and showed me where I was wrong. I can't just pretend I didn't Percieve what I did; I can't just ignore this problem. I have to make a choice. I have to decide whether to accept the truth or to deny it.

So now what do I do? I've always fought for the truth; can I really reject it now just because I don't like it? To pick and choose when I accept the truth makes me no better than the witnesses who lie on the stand to cover up the crimes of others-the witnesses whose lies I've broken through. Can Athena really be a murderer, the one who killed Clay? Or, is the real question this: is there any way she _isn't _the murderer? My bracelet has never failed; she's lying, and why would she lie to that extent if she wasn't the killer. I can't push away the truth just because I hate it. That isn't right-and it's no way to get justice for Clay. I vowed to avenge his death by finding the one who killed him; I can't do that if I refuse to accept the awful truth that's staring me in the face.

I was wrong earlier. I am fine-or I'm as fine as I ever will be again. I know what I must do; seek the truth, even though it's not what I want to believe. Even if it's turning my heart and soul as cold as ice in the process. Even if it means turning against someone I thought was a friend, I can do it because I know who I am; I'm Apollo Justice, defense lawyer and exposer of the truth, and I'm fine.


End file.
